CHINA has increased fears of a second wave of deadly coronavirus infections after two cities were placed under lockdown.

We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.

Chinese officials have imposed quarantine restrictions on two cities in the province of Jilin located in northeast China. Jilin is part of a wider province located in the Dongbei region - which is home to more than 100 million residents. The threat level in the area has been raised to “high-risk” by health authorities.

Related articles

China continues to be at the centre of a worldwide storm after US President Donald Trump threatened to permanently halt funding for the World Health Organization (WHO).

Mr Trump suspended US contributions to the WHO last month, and accused the organisation of promoting Chinese "disinformation" about the coronavirus – something the WHO and China denies.

Mr Trump said in the letter to WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the only way forward for the WHO was for it to demonstrate independence from China.

Coronavirus statistics from around the world (Image: EXPRESS)

The US President said: “If the WHO does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days.

“I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the WHO permanent and reconsider our membership.”

In 2019 the US contributed more than $400 million to the WHO or about 15 percent of its budget.

China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian said: “The US leadership's open letter is filled with phrases of suggestions, maybes, and potentialities, and is trying to mislead the public through this specious method, to achieve the goal of smearing and slandering China’s efforts in epidemic prevention and to shift responsibility in its own incompetence in handling the epidemic.”